unreal engine

S5 E151 Machinima News Omnibus (Oct 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes October 9, 2024 Leave a reply

This month, we have another packed episode, iClone 8 update, Balder’s Gate 3 modding tools, Starfield expansion, projects, projects, projects, Sketchfab, Backrooms, YouTube AI disclosure and more. Check out the ep and be sure to comment too.



YouTube Version of This Eposide

Show Notes & Links

iClone 8 update

Baldur’s Gate 3 modding tools, news item here

Starfield expansion pack –

Documentary machinima: focus on TF2 –

Hollywood is broken: enter machinima? (Andreesson Horowitz seem to have had their eyes and ears closed for a few years!). Check out the article here

Game Sprout’s article about gameplay becoming performance –

Denuvo’s release of Unbotify –

YouTube app update discussion

Nice projects: Runway Gen3 Steampunk –

Metropius deiselpunk –

Mad Max memes –

Kane Pixel’s Backrooms, more ‘found footage’ fun –

Sketchfab and Epic’s Unreal Marketplace merge into FAB

YouTube AI disclosure rules, described here

Biggs Trek’s Forbidden Planet: Children of Krell (which we review in our ep next week) magazine article here

Shameless plug: Phil’s livestream show and Damien’s livestream show

S4 E149 Special: Season Finale 2024

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 27, 2024 1 Comment

In this ep, we reflect on the key trends in #machinima we’ve observed during Season 4 of the Completely Machinima podcast. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the year too, so do add comments below.

During the past year, we have reviewed over 22 hours of content, and presented detailed analysis of over 50 films on this channel. As vets of the original community practices (that’s pre YouTube and the M.com/Inc days), one of the great pleasures we take in this podcast is that we get to look at machinima and virtual production across the breadth of genres and engines, by creators from anywhere in the world, and reflect on where its come from, how its evolved and is developing.

This year, we have seen amazing quality films made in popular games such as Half-Life, World of Warcraft, Elden Ring, Star Citizen, Warhammer 40K and Team Fortress 2; have had the pleasure of exploring work made in entirely new games, like BeamNG and Deep Rock Galactic; and others made using engines in their base form such as Unreal, iClone and Source. We’ve also started to see #genAIs become integrated into processes and works. What a year for creatives and creativity!

Our main observation is that we have noted a resurgence of interest in machinima as a terms for the creative form, and we feel creators are at long last focussing on creative practices rather than their channel return. Of course its great when these things collide but it was never what machinima was about originally: it was the passion for great storytelling, using novel processes to achieve a desired outcome and to share that with a community of equally passionate others. Other observations are why we are not seeing as many traditional short stories as we used to…

We hope you enjoy this ep as much as we have making it.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Key trends observed –

  • The highest quality of machinima we’ve ever seen
  • Unreal, by comparison, doesn’t actually really compare!
  • Experimentation
  • Meme’s
  • Distribution channels
  • Generative AIs

Our reviews, mentioned during discussion in order –

And, check out the bonus episode of our very own RickyAI –

S4 E141 Machinima News Omnibus (Aug 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes August 7, 2024 Leave a reply

Another packed episode of news items we found for machinima creators everywhere. We take a look at some games news including several that have released music albums recently and discuss why we think that is. We go through some of the latest AI matters, including Vimeo’s new AI content guidelines. We found one of the best Unreal master classes we ever seen, more like a work of art than a ‘how to’, but since its by the amazing Luis Andrade, we’d expect nothing less. We also found some partciularly juicy tidbits we think you’ll enjoy.



YouTube Version of This Episode

https://youtu.be/iQgqKU3O1eM

Show Notes & Links

Games, games, games…

PLEASE, if anyone has any great WoW machinima, share them with us!!! We are desperate to celebrate WoW achieving 20 years, but we just can’t find anything worth sharing…

Game developers releasing music albums, Runescape, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Tekken 8, Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and Deep Rock Galactic… a sideswipe at machinima, another way to make money from content creators or a quick way to get their IP onto YouTube?

Game destruction and consumer rights… what are the unintended consequences of Accursed Farms and others attempts to clear up this mess on machinima creators? See video discussion here –

No Man’s Sky Worlds, update trailer –

Flight Simulator cities update –

AI news

Epic AI gymnastics –

ReplAI Film Festival challenges, link here

Runway Gen-3 out, link here

ElevenLabs voice cleaner, link here

Vimeo’s AI policy, link here

Suno’s creator contest results, and the winner is… Maybe!

Unreal!

Luis Andrade’s stunning ‘how to‘ video for the Firefly music video, a work of art as well as a tutorial –

Andy Davis released 5 sets of dynamic lenses now available on the Unreal Marketplace. No blueprints, only lens objects that apply to any CineCamera. When pulled from focusMin to INF, they distort dynamically. Sourced from VFX assets to work interactively within game engine, link here. This is an example of what they do, Vimeo link here

Tidbits

Lip sync tutorial for ComfUI –

Making the case for alternative content creator distribution channels, comments by Harmony Korine here

Video game actors are officially on strike (SAG AFTRA)… but those working on GTA6 are not permitted to, link here

S4 E137 Machinima News Omnibus (July 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 10, 2024 Leave a reply

This month’s news omnibus covers our usual breadth of topics – from Reallusion’s Character Creator contest; to a ‘how to create in SL’, available only in SL; to Project Odyssey’s contest for genAIers; to the winners of the second AIFF; to some fabulous projects such as  @EpicSpaceman  latest film, an Elden Ring band, Jennifer McKnew’s Sydney and Socket project, and one dedicated to sharing with us the ‘speed of animals’; to the fallout from the Prince Charles Cinema debate about showcasing an genAI film; launch of the Starfield Creation Kit; Homefield 3; and a must have tool for creating great quality 3D backbounds called Distopica. Its a must watch for anyone working in #machinima!



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Reallusion’s Character Creator contest, link here

SL marketplace, Stem Van Helsinki’s virtual book on ‘how to be a video artist in Second Life’, link here

Skibidi toilet meme and Roblox game link here

Project Odyssey contest for genAI films, link here

Stable Diffusion’s Stable Audio Open, link here

OpenAI’s Sora and screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, links here and here

Epic Spaceman’s latest science jaunt – this time to the nano scale –

An Elden Ring band, not the usual kind of thing you will run into inside the game for sure –

A curious short about a swan and a robot, made in Unreal, entitled Sydney and Socket directed by Jennifer McKnew –

and Jennifer’s reflections on the creative process here

Red Side’s speed comparison of 3D animals –

Prince Charles Cinema debate, link here

Starfield Creation Kit, available here

Homeworld 3 mod tools and editor, available here

Dystopika, sandbox for futuristic cities, available on Steam here

S4 E131 Forlorn (May 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes May 29, 2024 Leave a reply

This week, we review a pretender for a new Disney show called Forlorn, by @projectforlorn (aka Alex St Pierre). Well, it may well be at some point in the near future! Starting life as a tech demo, this short has an interesting back story and has evolved into something even more interesting. Check out our review and add your own thoughts!



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Forlorn | Unreal Engine Short Film by Project Forlorn, released 3 Jan 2024 –

About Project Forlorn, website information here

How to and interview for Kitbash3D with St Pierre on Forlorn –

What is a MacGuffin? Check it out here

Trailer for Something Wicked This Way Comes, Disney –